Gigapixels Talk at Dorkbot SF

General - No Comments » - Posted on January, 10 at 7:55 pm

I’m talking at Dorkbot in San Francisco this coming Tuesday (Jan 10). I’m presenting some of my work with gigapixel imagery. If you’re in SF come check it out! Info about the talk below. The other talks are Joe Grand – The Projects of Prototype This, Paul Cesewski (aka Paul da Plumber)- Fun is the Universal Language, and Marc Powell – Delicious Corpse. Check out the talk details on the dorkbot sf site. One thing I’ll show is a refined version of my Hope, Alaska GigaPan.

dorkbot-sf
People doing strange things with electricity

time:
7:30pm Tuesday
13 January 2009

place:
Monkeybrains
984 Folsom St (@ 6th) 2nd Fl
San Francisco CA 94103

Directions

FREE ADMISSION but DONATIONS to our hosts much appreciated.

Dorkbot SF glow in the dark T-Shirts will be for sale! $20 cash

Michael Ang – Gigapixels: Practice and Aesthetics
Creating images with gigapixel (1 billion pixel) resolution is now within the reach of anyone with a digital camera and computer. Picture taking robots such as the GigaPan (developed by CMU and NASA) and modified telescope mounts can automatically take many overlapping pictures of a given scene. The individual pictures can be automatically stitched together to create a large final image. What are the aesthetics of this increasingly accessible medium? How does stitching together many small images differ from taking one very large one?

Michael (aka “Mang”) first used the GigaPan in the summer of 2007, when he took a prototype unit to Alaska by pickup truck. This talk presents some of his work with robotically assisted photography. Practical aspects of creating large panoramas will be presented as well less straightforward uses of the technology.

Mang holds a BASc in Computer Engineering from the University of Waterloo in Canada and a Master’s Degree from NYU’s Interactive Telecommunications program. His interests include the intersection of technology, art and physical experience.

http://www.michaelang.com
Mang’s pictures at gigapan.org

Working at the Internet Archive

General - 2 Comments » - Posted on January, 7 at 9:37 pm

I’m now (since November) working at the Internet Archive. Been interested in the place for years — great to be aboard. Currently working in the nascent Access Group helping to improve access to the Archive’s remarkable store of human knowledge

The Archive now has more than one million searchable and downloadable books. These books can be read online and I’m working on improvements to our online book reader.

Here’s an example of our beta embeddable book reader:

You can also read a copy of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz from 1900 or John Muir’s Travels in Alaska. Just two examples out of many books available!

If you want to use the bookreader or embed it on your site you can see the technical documentation. It’s open source and the book data is open too. It’s all part of the Archive’s vision of universal access to human knowledge.

GigaPixels: Alaska at rANCH Art Show

General - No Comments » - Posted on December, 18 at 7:22 pm

Back in October I showed three works from my GigaPixels: Alaska and Vancouver series at the cATaClysMic mEgaSHear rANCh (a detail of one of my pieces made it onto the flyer). The first was a panorama that I shot in Hope, Alaska starting around 11pm on July 7, 2007. I printed it in three sections totaling about 8 feet wide. The composite panorama is composed from 88 individual images taken using a GigaPan imager system. The blended image is 470 megapixels captured over 5 minutes. With the sun slowly arcing across the horizon the sky would blaze with colours for hours. The printed image is a refined version of my online Hope, Alaska GigaPan.

The second composite image, “July 1, 2007″ was shot at a beach outside Vancouver on Canada Day. Instead of blending the images to give the illusion of a single captured moment each of the 180 individual photographs are arranged in a mosaic with each captured instant given it’s own rectangle.

The third piece, “Vancouver Arrival” is a 1420 frame “successive instant” video of driving and arrival in the city of Vancouver.

I have some behind the scenes photos of the printing process. Since the panorama was in sections it fit on the back of my motorcycle!

I’m interested in showing the pieces again. If you know an opportunity please contact me.

Snibbe Interactive Catalog Winter 2009

General - No Comments » - Posted on December, 14 at 1:12 pm

Snibbe Interactive’s winter 2009 catalog of “ready-to-ship” interactive products is currently available online. I was involved with 6 of these products in the time that I worked for Snibbe.

Snibbe Interactive Catalog Winter 2009 (PDF)

Snibbe Interactive Catalog Winter 2009 (PDF, local mirror)

The projects I was involved with and their initial deployment:

Three Drops – installation for The Exploratorium as part of the Nanoscale Informal Science Education Network (NISE)
Unique Me, Three of Me, You and We – traveling installation for The Franklin Institute
Arctic Ice – permanent installation at California Academy of Sciences
Our Environment – installation for the Beijing Olympic Games in coordination with Thinc Design

Arctic Ice at California Academy of Sciences

General - No Comments » - Posted on December, 14 at 12:31 pm

Here’s a video of the Arctic Ice interactive installation at the California Academy of Sciences. I was the primary engineer for the project while working with the team at Snibbe Interactive. The piece is a permanent installation at the Cal Academy in the section of exhibits dealing with climate change.

Snibbe Interactive Arctic Ice from Snibbe Interactive on Vimeo.

Arctic Ice is based around the idea of the feedback loop that occurs between global temperature and shrinking ice caps. As rays of sunlight approach the ocean’s surface they will either strike an ice floe and be reflected back into the sky or absorbed if they strike open water. If the rays are absorbed by the water the global temperature increases and the ice floes melt and decrease in size. If the rays are instead blocked by the visitor’s “ice shadow” the temperature will decrease the ice floes reform. When the ice floes are large enough the baby polar bear can easily hop across to be reunited with its mother.

Our Environment Video

Video - No Comments » - Posted on November, 2 at 7:17 pm

Video of the Snibbe Interactive installation at the Beijing 2008 Olympics

Also see my previous post on Snibbe Interactive in Beijing.

Snibbe Interactive in Beijing

Trip Report - 1 Comment » - Posted on September, 18 at 10:19 pm

Here are photos of Snibbe Interactive’s Our Environment installation at one of the pavilions at the Beijing 2008 Olympics. I worked on the vision tracking component and networking portions of this installation that had 4 cameras, 7 computers, 11 projectors and an 8-channel spatialized sound system!

The installation was really gorgeous with flowers growing or being destroyed on the floor as people interacted gently or brusquely and text smoothly floating by on the living bamboo walls.

Being in Beijing in the run-up to the games was quite an experience. The work put into the Olympics was monumental. Our own Olympic effort involved everyone in the studio with Patrick and I being the spearhead in Beijing!

New GigaPan — Santa Cruz Boardwalk

General - No Comments » - Posted on September, 8 at 8:58 pm

I got in on the GigaPan beta program and got my hands on one of the commercial beta units! Here’s a GigaPan I did across from the boardwalk in Santa Cruz. It was 156 images stitched together to make a 807 megapixel image.

Click here to see the GigaPan on the gigapan.org site. This lets you see the snapshots and leave comments.

GigaPan unboxing photos on Flickr

Butterfly sighting in the Mission

General - 2 Comments » - Posted on February, 7 at 12:01 am

I’m a few months late with this post but I saw some butterflies in the Mission here in San Francisco just a few blocks from my house. The bush that they were so into has since been trimmed back. I’ve seen a few more butterflies up on Bernal Heights Hill and at Holly Park. Also three not-so-wild racoons in the Haight. San Francisco has some wildlife!

(If anyone can positively identify the butterfly species, please let me know!)

New Motorcycle

General - No Comments » - Posted on February, 6 at 11:51 pm

I got a Suzuki SV650 a few months ago. Quite a nice ride! Lots of torque and very friendly. A little too friendly as I managed to low-side it exactly 10 days after taking ownership. It was a wonderful day in the hills and alas my reality got checked at the end of a vigorous ride. No harm to rider and nothing more than cosmetic damage to the bike. About the softest I could have come down all considered.

Been riding quite a bit easier since then. Be careful out there in the rain and debris-strewn corners!

Michael Ang

Recent Entries

Pages